Ernie wrote:
You are forgiven. Discussion and sharing your opinion is fine. You have been using words like "criticize" "blaming" "ignore" etc. so if that is how you feel about what I am saying, then it doesn't feel like "discussion and sharing" to me.
Well your response to the Isaiah verse I quoted I can't really define other than criticism, and ignoring is more or less a statement of fact when someone doesn't reply to most of what you're saying. It's not so much about how I feel, or an attempt on my part to cause strife, it's just pointing out the plain obvious.
Ernie wrote:
When I said that you have no further audience with me, I'm saying that one of us is talking about Venus and the other is talking about Mars, and we need to have some common ground before we can go further.
This audio lecture linked above talks about the context of a verse you quoted. It is part of the conversation and I am inviting you to it. If you don't want to engage in this conversation to this level, you are certainly not obligated to do so.
I could list dozens of scriptures as well and we could debate for years, but I don't think that would get us very far. Some Anabaptists and Protestants have already been doing this already for about five centuries.
So until we operate from the same starting place and worldview, it will just be more of the same rhetoric.
Well that might be true in some way, but the common denominator we both have is the Bible right? We both take it as the inerrant Word of God. And if our understanding of language is the same, and our Bible is the same, we should be able to discuss what's inside right?
I was reading Romans last night, and I just thought that what Paul is saying there is so plain and clear in teaching that there is none that seeks after God or that does good, no not one. And that a man is justified through faith in Jesus Christ, so we don't have anything to boast. Does that make the law void? God forbid, it establishes the law. I don't think this is "protestant" rhetoric by any means, this is just plain Bible teaching. Now does the Bible elsewhere say that faith without works is dead? Yes it does. Does it call for us to live holy lives in obedience to God? Yes it does. And I think it's both true, and I don't think that James for instance was contradicting Paul by any means, but he was giving a different emphasis to a different audience.
Romans 3:10-31
"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
Their feet are swift to shed blood:
Destruction and misery are in their ways:
And the way of peace have they not known:
There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law."
lesterb wrote:
So does God give this invitation to everyone, or to a select group only?
Well God has intended for us not to hide our light under a bushel, but put it on a candlestick so it might light the room right? So God wants the Gospel invitation to go out to everyone, because God so loved the world. But He uses people to accomplish His plans, and it takes us to be obedient to Gods will and actually go into the world and sow the seed.